REVIEW: Rage

Rage
Author: Richard Bachman (Stephen King)

This book is the first that Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1977. It deals with a high school student's descent into mental illness. Charlie Decker has inner demons...and when they break to the surface he takes a gun to school. There were warning signs.....he had behavior issues, trouble at home with his overbearing father, and assaulted a teacher so badly the man almost died. As he faces expulsion from high school and being sent to a reform school, Charlie breaks. He kills two teachers and takes an entire classroom hostage. 

Stephen King has let this book fall out of print. The only way to read it is to find an old copy. I found an omnibus of four Bachman books from the 1980s called The Bachman Books. Newer editions of this collection do not include Rage. King had the book removed from the collection in 1997 following a school shooting in Kentucky. The Bachman Books was found in the shooter's locker after the incident. King is quite outspoken about gun control these days.  I almost stopped reading the book out of respect for King's wishes to let this particular story disappear (and because as the mom of a teenage boy this was a really really hard book to read)....but I felt it was important to finish. I wanted to see inside the mind of a teenager who reached a point where he believed a gun was the answer to his problems.

Rage is not really about school shooters or the mental break that sends loners down that sort of violent path. For me it was more of a statement on the cruelty humans show to one another on a daily basis and how that can have lasting, horrible effects. Charlie starts his slide into mental instability as a young child witnessing his parent's toxic relationship. By the time he reaches high school, he just can't handle a world that makes him feel so small. We all endure high school....that little microcosm of society where any weakness, difference or mistake is exploited. It's a wonderful time and a horrible experience at the same time.  As Charlie sits in a classroom with a gun pointed at 25 of his fellow students, we get a peek into The Truth. The real emotions, feelings and predatory behavior that they are all feeling. The gun is just the catalyst that pushes the situation into hard, cold reality.

This story was a very emotional and difficult one for me to read. As the parent of a teenage boy, I wonder sometimes about the safety of public school and the world my son will have to navigate as an adult. It's scary. I think Rage is somewhat dated. Charlie is portrayed as a sort of anti-hero....a misunderstood, abused and confused boy who needs mental help. This version of the school shooter is a bit different than the one seen today....loners who want to take out people they are jealous of or who they feel victimized them. Loners who crave instant attention or notoriety. Internet fame. Followers. A lasting infamy. A yearning to be important. The reality seems a lot more bleak and sad than fictional Charlie Decker from 1977.

I totally understand why Stephen King wants this book to just fade away. It's too real and seems to give an excuse for violence. I'm glad I finished it. I will have to mull it over in my head a bit longer to fully decide what I think about the story though.